They were not accidents. No one accidentally draws, aims a gun and shoots. If that whole sequence is accidental, that person shouldn't be in charge of a weapon.
(Hence I'm calling it an accident, where the police officer may be at fault. Though, other commentators saying it was cold blooded, a death sentence, deliberate, etc. is not true. Nor is generalizing this particular situation to changes in government type. These people really want to portray their political opponent as bad as they possibly can.)
I need you to read this and really think about the words.
You should watch the video. While seem to be an accident, a way to avoid it would have just been not bring a gun in the first place nor engage physically with law enforcement.
These actions in general to restrict law enforcement to do their job isn't helping either. Protest in front of government buildings, not follow police around.
What I'm saying is that he did have a gun, this particular gun was taken away, then he was apparently reaching for something else, which may have been mistaken for a gun, hence the shot. Or, the officer fired at him for some other suspicion. Regardless, you don't have perfect information in a situation like this. The guy wasn't behaving peacefully either.
My suggestion would be to obey orders, don't bring weapons to protests, don't resist when you're being detained. And so on.
And not behaving peacefully (who would when you are pepper sprayed and are hitting you in the head) shouldn't (in a decent country) be a reason to be shot.
I personally would have just been entirely still right from the moment the detainment process started.
You make it seem as this was just a random guy walking with a phone, and was shot.
I.e, I maintain that this was an accident. The police didn't want to shoot this person, nor did the person want to use his gun. But it appeared like that to both sides which then caused the event that followed.
Alex put hands on the officers first so there was an apparent reason.
Do you have any source for this? If that was the case, the DHS would have reported it as it would support their narrative.
> Alex put hands on the officers first so there was an apparent reason.
This not true! Alex moved in front of the ICE officer who just violently pushed the woman to the ground. He had this cell phone in his right hand and he raised his left hand in a protective manner. He does not even appear to touch the agent at any moment. This is when he got peppersprayed in the face. Then he tried to help the woman up. This is when an agent grapples him from behind and Alex gets wrestled to the ground. At no point did he behave in a threatening manner! You can clearly see this in the videos.
For example: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/minute-minute-timeline-fatal...
Regarding shooting, what seems clear that shooting started after the gun was taken from Alex. At the discovery of it an officer also shouted "gun", after this guns were drawn and then shots were fired. Which gun went off first doesn't appear from the videos, but after the first one did, I assume that the rest of the shooting was due to the first shot being interpreted as the victim starting shooting, as not all of the officers saw that the gun had already removed.
Still, don't bring a gun to a protest, don't engage in any physical activities with law enforcement, don't stop them from doing their work, don't walk and whistle along..
Say it turned out that the first shot was fired due to an officer misinterpreting something for a gun, because "gun" was yelled, would that turn this into anything else than an accident?
The best way to appear not to have a gun, nor appear dangerous at all, is not bring a gun to a protest.
> It's just that the first one likely caused the rest of it as the surrounding officers didn't know who was shooting.
No need to speculate. If you watch https://youtu.be/i8kFcK-X-vQ?t=108 you will see that the first agent shoots Alex in the back one time and another three times while they all move away. Note that Alex has been restrained the whole time. One second later, you hear 6 more shots. This is where the second agent got involved. At this point, Alex has already been lying on the ground.
> because "gun" was yelled, would that turn this into anything else than an accident?
At best this was an accident, but even then it was the agents fault for misinterpreting the situation or the DHS's fault for deploying badly trained agents. (Hearing the words "Gun!" does not give officers the permit to shoot, unless they perceive an imminent threat to their or someone else's life!) However, if you watch the video above, you can see that an agent removes Alex' gun right in front of the agent who fires the first shots. There are lots of open questions.
> The best way to appear not to have a gun, nor appear dangerous at all, is not bring a gun to a protest.
The act of conceiled carrying alone does not make you a threat. Alex never behaved in a threatening way.
Instead of putting the blame solely on Alex, maybe ask yourself what the agents could have done to deescalate the situation, what kind of people the DHS recruits as ICE agents and if their training is appropriate for urban policing.
This seems to be what people suspect. It's less likely that an officers own gun goes off as they are familiar with it.
I don't put blame on Alex, solely (read!). But the ill meaning callouts of ICE being this and that, occupation, isn't correct either. I don't think you people in the US have actually lived under an occupation, so these words are easy to use.
Regarding being threatening: well, if you carry a gun to a protest and engage physically with an officer (subjectively and to me) is threatening. It also seemed threatening to the shooting officers.
Who? Not even the DHS people claim this! And why did you initially present it as a fact?
> It's less likely that an officers own gun goes off as they are familiar with it.
Again, you can clearly see/hear on the video that the agent fires the first shot. No gun went off. Why do you make stuff up?
> It also seemed threatening to the shooting officers.
I very much doubt it. At the best the agents were just badly trained and did not know how to handle someone who carries a gun (in a state that allows conceiled carrying).
The first shot is not "clearly seen" as far as I can tell.
If Pretti, and the first fired shot, didn't seem threatening then the shooting wouldn't have happened..
I'm happy that you know how law enforcement works, how to behave in critical situations and that it actually is possible to have perfect awareness of any situation. If you are this good, I'd suggest to join the force yourself, as you have a clear advantage in doing that kind of work.
This video ties my non-professional opinion well into the US legal fabric https://youtu.be/QePoawDA_48?si=0mr-lMR_lIRoBDA_.
Maybe in some MAGA podcast circles. This has never been more than pure speculation. Again, why did you present it as a fact?
Let's assume the gun went off. I'm sure the person holding that gun would have noticed that. Why wasn't this reported, especially as it would support their case? This just doesn't make any sense at all.
> The first shot is not "clearly seen" as far as I can tell.
It very much is. Did you even watch the video I've linked? It shows the very moment the first shot is being fired. Are you seriously claiming it is not the agent who is firing that shot? Again, not even the DHS is disputing that the agent fired the first shot.
Stop making a fool of yourself.
There'll likely be a deeper investigation and a report to say whether that's true or not.
That's not a serious theory that needs investigating. I have no idea where you're getting all your "information" from, but I can tell you that you need to reflect on your media consumption. You're in a bubble.